peterosesbookie

I finally found out why I fried my CPU last year which was an AMD Athlon 1900+ MP. The Thermal Grease I was using was Radio Shack 276-1372 A Heat Sink Compound. The Compound after 6 months Dried out to a crisp and then fried my CPU.

I then eventually bought 2 AMD Athlon 2800+ MP for my system. I had to tear down my whole system (yearly cleaning) but I did not have any real thermal grease for computers so I used the Heat sink compound. After about 4 days of using the compound, the Thermal Grease completely dried out upon the heat sink and the CPU. NOT even enough to wipe it off with a qtip to clean it. I applied a lot of the grease.

My temps were also 45-50 degrees on both processors. I immediately ordered some Artic Silver 5 High-Density Polysynthetic Silver Thermal Compound.

My Temperatures dropped dramatically. I went from the 45-50 degrees Celsius to 32-34 degrees.

I highly recommend this thermal compound, but you have to be careful when using it do to its electrical conductivity


Later

pete

__________________
A Cat almost always blinks when hit in the head with a ball peen hammer!

DriveEuro

Ha, no it doesn't. I use it. I notice maybe a 2-3C higher temp then AS3. And also, you can clean this crap up with your fingers if you so choose.
You obviously mounted your heatsink wrong or something bro. There was a review of themal pastes in the news section several months ago. And out of them Radio Shack was one of the best out of the 15 (i think) pastes.

peterosesbookie

From my experience, I will not use it do to that it dries out after a short while. Also here is an article from the techzone on thermal paste comparsion.

The Tech Zone Thermal Compound Comparison

I also go a 10-15 C degree drop in heat when using the arctic silver 5.


later

pete

__________________
A Cat almost always blinks when hit in the head with a ball peen hammer!

DriveEuro

Dries out? AHHAHAHA, you wish. I've had it on my sister's Compaq 2400 since April. Just 3 weeks ago I cleaned out her rig and it was still as moist and thick as before. But prior to that her 2400 had AS3 on it. Once I took off that heatsink after about 4 months the AS3 was no longer silverish. It was brown and discolored (possibly tarnished) and it turned really .... I guess brittle on the heatsink and was hard to remove. Granted her computer hit 55C under load but still.

edit: I can't vouch for that 7 degree difference. Cuz seriously. I'm not a temp freak or nothing BUT I do leave Speedfan running all the time. And the temp with AS3 were anywhere between 39-43C for my 1700B 1.75v at load. Now I have same CPU at same voltage and temps never exceed 44C with same cooling.